Use the Accountant's Copy

Learn how to use the Accountant's Copy in QuickBooks Desktop.

The Accountant's Copy feature in QuickBooks Desktop allows accountants and clients to work on a company file at the same time. The Accountant's Copy is seamlessly transferred between accountants and clients without the need to email bulky files.

The following sections outline how Accountant's Copy works. It also explains what you can and can't do in an Accountant's Copy.

Accountant's Copy: Workflow

Rather than saving the Accountant’s Copy file on your computer or thumb drive, the Accountant's Copy feature transfers files between accountants and clients through Intuit servers.

The following process illustrates the Accountant's Copy feature workflow:

The client creates an Accountant's Copy to send to the accountant for review and editing. The client can continue to work on current items in the working file (.QBW).

QuickBooks Desktop saves the Accountant’s Copy as an export file (.QBX) to the Intuit server.

This triggers the system to send an email with a download link for the export file to the accountant.

The accountant accesses and opens the file, creating a working file (.QBA), and makes changes and corrections in it.

The accountant saves their changes and corrections, creating an import file (.QBY), which is saved to the Intuit server.

The client can then open this import file to apply the accountant's changes to the company file.

Dividing date: Explained

The Accountant's Copy uses the Dividing Date to define the fiscal period the accountant can work on. The Dividing Date restricts the transactions the accountant can modify.

Accountants can only modify transactions that fall on or before the dividing date. To prevent conflict or the possibility of overwriting changes, clients can only modify transactions in their working file that fall after the dividing date unless the Accountant’s Copy Restriction is removed.

Clients: What you can (and can't) do while changes are pending

While your accountant is making changes in the Accountant's Copy you sent, you can work in the .QBW working file to make changes to transactions in the current period, after the dividing date.

You can also make the following types of changes in the QBW file with pending accountant’s changes:

Add new entries to any of your lists

Create, edit, and delete transactions

Edit the list information

Turn on Payroll

However, while accountant's changes are pending, you can't make the following changes:

Edit or delete existing accounts

Send Assisted Payroll Data or Direct Deposits to Intuit

Clients: Reconciliation and pending changes

It's possible to reconcile your accounts with a pending Accountant's Copy. However, your reconciliation may be rolled back if you clear transactions dated on or before the dividing date, or if your accountant reconciles the Accountant's Copy and undoes your reconciliation.

Verify with your accountant whether they plan to reconcile the Accountant’s Copy before you reconcile your accounts in your working file.Reconciliations performed in an Accountant's Copy are limited to 800 transactions. If the number of transactions reconciled is more than 800, the reconciliation won't import into the client file.

Accountants: What you can (and can't) do in an Accountant's copy

When you receive an Accountant's Copy from your client, QuickBooks Desktop prevents you from editing information or transactions that may conflict with your client's work. It also prevents your client from editing information before the Dividing Date to avoid conflict with any changes you make.

When working in an Accountant's Copy (the .QBA working file), you may encounter disabled or sometimes highlighted areas in a client's file:

Highlighted background: Information entered in these fields is included in the change file that you send back to your client

Non-highlighted background: You can change information in non-highlighted fields, if necessary, but the changes are not included in the change file you send back to your client

There are also some specific limitations of the type of changes you can make.

The following sections provide details about the specific changes you can and cannot make in an Accountant's Copy.

Lists: What you can (and can't) do

When working with Lists, you can make the following changes in an Accountant's Copy: